Zim Zimmerton: The Irken Scientist
by Dawn Totadile
Summary: What if Zim wasn't really an Egotistical wierdo trying to conquer Earth? What if he only came to earth to get away from the idiots that were his leaders? What if Gir wasn't actually so dumb as he seemed, and Zim truthfully wasn't as afraid of Earth things as it looked? What if... I stopped asking so many questions? :P The truth is out, but how will Dib and the others react?
1. Chapter 1

Zimmerton was the head scientist of the Irken empire… there were just a few problems with this… first off… he was a smeet. That is to say, a child. He hated life in the labs that no one visited or even really seemed to know about. Shortly after he had been decanted, he had shown intelligence and had quickly made his way to the status of genius and head scientist in the time it takes a human to age five years. He had his own personal assistant bot, a Generalized Intelligence Reconnaissance bot, or GIR, which was really his best friend.

Zimmerton took a look at what his empire had become from the history books he had loved to read. The empire was all for conquering, but no longer held its original intent. No one even knew what the original intent was anymore. Everyone was a clone, and no one knew how the original Irkens had reproduced or even what had caused them to start cloning.

After escaping the scientist's compound with Gir, Zimmerton made some hard choices, including deactivating Gir so he could be retrieved later. He also took a new name that was less noticeable to the scientists who were looking for the young smeet. By the time he had turned ten, Zimmerman had been part of "Impending Doom" 1 and was also in the second attempt. His new name was Zim.

Zim had been shocked by the tallest, who were so stupid that they didn't even know Zim was a smeet still, and that there were actual scientists who monitored everything that the brains didn't. They had reluctantly accepted him into the second invasion, only by basically banishing him, which had been his goal the entire time. He had been quite ecstatic to be given his own GIR unit, which the tallest had foolishly returned to him without realizing it, another part of his brilliant planning of course. Unfortunately, Gir had been ruined by a few things that the Tallest had placed into his head when trying to "Put him together" for Zim. Zimmerton had decided that he'd fix Gir at a later date.

When the duo had arrived on Earth, Zimmerton had taken care to choose the worst disguise on the list for the soul reason that it was expected of him. He set up his home and enrolled in school under the name Zim Zimmerton. He was quite happy with this, especially since he had met someone worthy of his genius on this planet, Dib Membrane. While the boy hated him solely because he was an alien, whom he identified himself as an alien invader, so he wasn't too surprised, Zim himself however cherished the intelligence that was Dib, as well as the spunk and tenacity of the human boy. He also liked the boy's sister, Gaz, and even though the "Demon Child" was exceedingly dangerous to deal with, Zim found that he appreciated her genius as well. The Membrane family were certainly one that Zim wanted to interact with more.

So he devised tests that were staged as his "attempts to take over the planet" just to keep Dib happy, and so as to not arouse suspicion from the tallest. Zim was quite unhappy to find Tak had been sent to his new planet though. Tak was one of the most brilliant warriors/ invaders to have been decanted since the cloning process had even begun. She was everything an invader should be, or rather, everything that a warrior of ancient times would be jealous of. The Tallest were fools, having banished her under the ruse that if she defeated Zim she could be counted among the Invaders. Zim knew it was because of him that she hadn't been able to make it to where she wanted to in her life, and he truly regretted that, but he still couldn't allow her to defeat him nor could he allow her to destroy his new home.

It had been eight years since Zim had been sent to Earth, and he was nearing graduation from high school with Dib and Tak. Much to Dib's surprise, Zim had mellowed out as time went on, but he still didn't trust the little alien invader… yet…


	2. Chapter 2

Zim was working on repairing Gir, finally managing to repair him back to his original self before the tallest had ruined his circuitry with garbage years ago. Dib had broken into the house thirty seconds ago, and was still sneaking around as though the invader hadn't noticed him. An alarm sounded, saying that Zim was receiving a call from the Tallest. Zim sighed. "Dib, could you get that?" He was occupied with Gir.

Dib froze. 'What the heck?' Zim was in the kitchen with his tool kit, still close enough to the living room to watch the television where the message would pop up. "Um… sure?"

"Just turn on the television." Zim explained. The large headed human did just that and backed up as two creatures that looked like Zim's alien form, only taller, stupider looking, and wearing strange outfits, were waiting.

"Um… who are you?" The one in the red asked as he glared at the human.

The purple one looked excited for a minute. "Did you kill Zim?"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, my tallest, but I'm still functioning, and once I'm done repairing Gir, he will be fully functional as well." Zim responded from the kitchen.

This made the purple one sigh and sulk while the red one took over again. "So who is this strange creature? Don't tell me you actually did take over and this is one of your servants."

"That is Dib Membrane, defender of the planet Earth. You would do well to show respect, oh my tallest, for he is fierce and dangerous when he wants to be." Dib looked at Zim with surprise as the alien kept tinkering away at an unconscious Gir. Zim had just praised him! Zim finally took his hands out of the robot's head and resealed him before putting him down. The robot shook his head before his blue eyes turned on once more. "How are you feeling now, Gir?"

"I feel great! I'm gonna go make tacos! You want some?" Zim smiled. Gir was able to talk normally again, even if he did seem childish still, and had a strange love for pigs and Mexican food.

"Sure, Gir. Just remember that I'll need my medicine if you make those."

"Okey-dokey!" Gir then turned to Dib. "Do you want some tacos, big-head?" He seemed to like that nickname for Dib still though.

"Um…sure?" Dib was uncertain of what to think as Zim stood up, dusted himself off, and walked into the living room with more confidence than he usually showed, and that was saying a lot. "Um… aren't you mad that I broke in this time?"

"Pfft, you didn't break anything but a window, and the computer repairs everything in the house each night. Nah, thanks for answering the phone though." The strange invader had grown as tall as the humans did during his time here on Earth, making him the real Tallest of his race, along with Tak, but they didn't know this as they were no longer able to compare to other Irkens. Zim then turned his attention to the tallest. "Well my tallest, what brings you to call upon me after so long of no communication? Surely I thought you had abandoned me already." Zim had a dangerous smile on his face that creeped out everyone but Gir. They had quit calling him or answering his calls after Zim had been there for two years.

"That's why we're calling you, Zim." The red one made sure that there was no way to be confused by the tone of his voice. "You are banished. That's why we sent you to this planet. You can't even conquer it anyway! Don't even bother to return here and you are no invader, just some foolish loser, got it?"

Zim rolled his eyes much to everyone's surprise. "Did it ever occur to you that I only tried to conquer it once? I'm a scientist, not an invader. So please, have some consideration in the fact that I've managed to survive and live among these creatures with only a few knowing what I truly am." That statement shocked his tallest more than it did Dib. At the second Impending Doom Invasion ceremony, Zim had pleaded that being an invader was in his blood, now here he was, eight years later, saying the opposite. "Also, you guys sent a smeet out into the universe to die/invade, congratulations."

"A… smeet?" The purple one was now paying attention again.

"That's not possible. Smeets are too young to know how to do anything." Red argued.

"I was a ten earth years old smeet and you sent me here." Zim still had his scary smile on his face. "I became head scientist of Irk when I was five, back then I went by the name Zimmerton. I'm about to undergo a ceremony that will establish me as an adult of the Earth Species, which apparently matures two years faster than Irkens do. While Irkens are known to live for approximately 200 years, and humans can only live half that long at the moment, I will point out that there are a lot of similarities between the two species." His voice calm, level, and intelligent sounding for once. He then lost the scary smile and looked like a young man contemplating something. "I do believe that means you Tallest just got outsmarted by a smeet." The tallest looked at Zim with shock while Dib couldn't help the smirk on his face. Zim grinned evilly again, "How embarrassing."

True, Dib hated Zim, but if what he just said was true, Zim had never really been his enemy, and these Irkens were even dumber than they thought. Also, Zim seemed to be up for praising him, which was new. 'Who the heck is this and where did he banish Zim?'

"Bu…bu…" The tallest were in shock. This couldn't be possible!

"OH, and one more thing, my Tallest." Zim glared dangerously at the screen. "Should I see any sign of Irkens in this galaxy, I will personally destroy them… if I should fail, then rest assured that the human known as Dib will not, after all… He's a genius smeet of his kind as well." With that, the screen turned off, leaving the two tallest shaking in fear of the invader that they used to think was an idiot!

"That… could have gone better." Purple pointed out.

"YOU THINK!"


	3. Chapter 3

Dib was looking at the tired looking invader with confusion. His own people didn't know he was a scientist, not to mention the head scientist? He had only tried to conquer the world once? He knew Dib was a genius? "Um… what the heck?"

"I do apologize for the ruse, Dib, but I feared that they might check up on me, and if they saw us getting along, then they might have just destroyed this planet with no thought whatsoever." Zim explained calmly as he sat on the couch.

"Zim, honey?" It was the mom-bot. Dib was surprised to see it acting like an actual mother at the moment. "Was that the Tallest?"

"Yes, Mother." Zim nodded as the bot came around the corner. "Don't worry, they just wanted to finally tell me I'm banished. I have to call up Tak later so I can help her get her ship repaired and get her off this planet. She's not really happy here, after all."

"Oh, don't worry so much dear. You'll figure it out." She smiled kindly. "Oh, hello, Dib. Would you kids like some cookies?"

"That would be nice, Mother. Would you like some, Dib?" Zim asked as though he had been friends with the boy for years.

Dib simply nodded as he tried to take everything in. "I really am crazy, aren't I?" The poor teen sighed as he sat on the couch in a slump.

Zim shook his head. "No, Dib, you're fine. I on the other hand might be a little… insane… but eh, that's what happens when you grow up in a lab and your best friend is a malfunctioning robot, eh Gir?"

Gir gave off a giggle from the kitchen before arriving with a tray of decently cooked tacos and a bottle of medicine, along with two cups of milk. "YEP! I made tacos! OH, and I brought your medicine, Master."

"The Tallest are gone now, Gir, you don't have to call me that anymore." Zim smiled as he gratefully took the medicine bottle, opened it up, and ingested two pills before eating some of the tacos, much to Dib's surprise.

"YEAH! I can call you my bestest friend again?" Gir looked up pleadingly. Zim smiled and rubbed the tiny robot's head.

"Yes, you can. Thanks by the way, these tacos are a lot better than last time. What did you do?"

"I added SALSA!" Gir exclaimed as he put the tray down in front of the two boys.

Zim nodded. Dib on the other hand was still confused. "Aren't you allergic?"

Zim looked at him and then back to the tacos before laughing. "Not really, so long as I take some medicine once a day, I can eat meat and even interact with water." That was a surprise to Dib. That knocked out the majority of his ideas to destroy Zim and any Irken threats. "Relax, as I stated, I'm not even interested in taking over. If anything, I really like this place now and want to protect it as much as you do. Seriously though, some of these humans are so dumb!" He laughed. "I mean, I only needed contacts and a wig and they thought I was one of them with a skin condition? How gullible?" He started laughing, and Dib, much to his own surprise, started to laugh as well.

"Yeah, hahaha, oh man, but why keep me believing that? I mean, I get when the tallest asked for reports, and heck, I even understand with Tak, but why not try to make peace with me?"

Zim looked a little down at this. "Because, I was worried that if you knew that I was a scientist you would treat me like they did on Irk, like I wasn't capable of anything but being in a lab and thinking. I can plan, I can fight, I can do so much more than just sit behind glass and watch as things happen…" Then he looked up at Dib. "You should know that I admire you. You put up with all the insanity that I put you through, you put up with the hatred from everyone because of me, and yet here we are, years later, after we've both calmed down from the initial 'Alien Invasion' thing, and… well…"

"Now we're friends…" Dib held out his hand, hoping that Zim would agree to this. The alien was right, even when everyone else treated him like he was insane, the two had grown to respect each other on their own way.

Zim smiled and nodded. "Yes, now we are friends…"


	4. Chapter 4

Needless to say it was strange for everyone in skool to find Zim and Dib talking about things as though they had always been friends. At the moment they were both laughing at the town's way of spelling "School" with a "K" instead of "CH" like everywhere else. "…I mean, come on, if it had been anyone else, they'd have thought this was a goldmine to start in as well without even making it to the capital." Zim was pointing out just how dumb an invader could be by basing their knowledge off of one area's culture and knowledge.

"Yeah, hehe, I guess that's why it was so easy to stop Tak?"

"HA, we got lucky, Tak is actually far superior to Zim in the ways of the warrior, while I, THE ALMIGHTY ZIM…" everyone was still too used to his ego every once in a while to care about it, same with his habit of talking in third person, "am superior to her in the ways of science." Dib nodded in understanding.

"What about her… cat?"

"Hmm? Oh, Mimi, that thing… Gir wasn't meant to be much more than my loyal companion anyway. The tallest messed him up though so I've been having to regularly repair him. I don't mind it so much though." Zim shrugged.

"How'd they mess him up?"

"Well when I pretended to be an invader, I had to hide Gir and the only way I could think of was to temporarily disable him and place him in a trash canister. Imagine my surprise when at the second invasion plan, the tallest take him out of the trash, after they had put some garbage into him…" Zim rolled his eyes. "And that's when I figured it was time to make my escape. Thankfully, Gir, ever the quick thinker, played along long enough for us to get here… I really need to figure out what possessed him to do the 'Doom Song' for six months though… I blame the tallest…"

"Doom Song? Do I want to know?" Dib chuckled.

"Oh, it's just Gir singing 'Doom' repeatedly for an obsessive amount of time." Zim grimaced as they entered the classroom. "He's not so bad usually, but six months of that and I had half a mind to repair him right there, even without the proper space or equipment."

"I'm impressed." Dib admitted.

"Oh, hey, wanna come down to the lab later after class? I can teach you more about…" Zim looked around and grimaced. "My skin condition."

"Really? That'd be cool!"

"Then it's a plan." Both Irken and Human shook hands again. That was when the entire class screamed in fear and backed away from the two. They weren't acting normal!


End file.
